The head of Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) is advocating his forces as a place to test new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning while separately dealing with increasing military sales competition from Russian and China.
SOUTHCOM does not often get much attention in defense strategy or budgets, but commander Adm. Kurt Tidd is arguing its diverse range of threats make it a good testbed for artificial intelligence and machine learning to help process the intelligence and data his command gathers.
Speaking during a Defense Writers Group breakfast with reporters, Tidd said SOUTHCOM’s area of responsibility (AOR) includes low-level Chinese and Russian influence; Iranian proxies in Hezbollah; grey zone conflict with insurgencies, drug cartels, and gangs; a refugee crisis from Venezuela; and Russian and Chinese arms sales competition.
Tidd said SOUTHCOM’s “bumper sticker is, ‘If you’ve got something new, try it here first.’” His command is interested and “can provide meaningful feedback on missions.”
He highlighted SOUTHCOM needs better reconnaissance capabilities to better understand what is happening in the region plus the tools to process, exploit, and share the analyzed data.
SOUTHCOM is talking to the national labs about the ability “to take large amounts of data and analyze, reduce it to be able to make sense out of what we’re seeing,” Tidd said.
He said “we can be kind of a test platform” for mixed war capabilities, trying new capabilities out at a smaller scale, but in a way that is meaningful and can feed back into their further development and deployment.
He added he has talked with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley about how they can leverage their respective AI and machine learning programs and expand multi-domain command and control capabilities. For now, this is still moving from the conceptual to hardware phases, but Tidd said he is very interested in hearing more and helping.
Tidd said, “you need apertures and you need the back-end processing and dissemination of the information that you receive. And it takes both but how can we automate some of that back end” to be used as efficiently as possible and make sense of the information they gather then share it with partners relatively easily.
“It’s very much a work in progress. But what we’re trying to do is how do you accomplish the goals that kind of, large manpower intensive processes that were created to deal with conflicts in other theaters…how do you achieve the same goals but more efficiently,” he added.
Separately, Russia and China are particularly competing with and trying to undercut the U.S. on military hardware sales.
“China especially, but also Russia are competing in that space to offer deals, at prices that undercut the type of equipment that we would be interested in providing,” Tidd said.
While all countries have budget challenges look for the best possible deals, Tidd said the American challenge is showing that while there can be a bit of “sticker shock” with U.S. defense sales, “if you buy American, which is what they absolutely want to do, not only do you get the kit, you get the spare parts, you get the support and all that back end tail that goes along with it.”
In contrast, when buying from countries like Russia or China “you get the stuff, but then it’s on your own dime and will cost you extra if you want to maintain it or do the refurbishment or do the upgrades and the updates and things like that,” he added.
For example, the SOUTHCOM head said Peru was looking for new military wheeled vehicles and was “very, very interested” in the General Dynamics [GD] Stryker armored fighting vehicles.
However, “unhelpful propaganda” came out of Russia undercutting the Stryker’s abilities and, later, Russia “rolled in with some refurbished BTRs at a “cut-rate price,” Tidd said.
He also noted Russia has been supplying Venezuela and to some extent Nicaragua with military systems that are not warranted by their security threats.
Tidd said Venezuela is the primary beneficiary, getting a number of high tech systems like high performance jet aircraft and air defense systems even though “they face no existential threat from any of their neighbors.”
Nicaragua is receiving refurbished T-70 Russia tanks, while their armed forces do not particularly require that defensive capability given its neighbors, he added.
Despite these problems, Tidd said the U.S. has close relationships with Columbia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil.
He highlighted the example of a Chilean rear admiral serving as the maritime component commander of the 2018 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise.
“These are proud and capable militaries that have taken on broader security responsibilities,” Tidd added.